Novel Full Chapter 496: Gladiator Tournament! Second Round: Wolf Cage!
Chapter 496: Gladiator Tournament! Second Round: Wolf Cage!
Nathan’s gaze swept over the cavernous chamber, his sharp eyes narrowing as the shadows shifted with movement. A dozen wolves prowled the den, each towering nearly three meters high—monstrous beasts whose sheer size made the gladiators look small, almost insignificant. Their fur bristled like sharpened spears, their fangs glinted white in the flickering torchlight, and their yellow eyes gleamed with hunger.
This was no natural lair. The place reeked of contrivance. The den was carved too neatly into the stone, the ground littered with gnawed bones planted like grim decorations. The walls bore claw marks too uniform, too deliberate. This was no accident of nature—it was an arena. A carefully constructed trap.
The architects of the tournament had gone to great lengths to make it so, and Nathan understood why. This was no ordinary competition. This was a crucible designed to forge—or destroy—those who dared pursue Pandora.
If she really lost control, she would not merely wound kingdoms; she could unravel the very world. Even the Gods themselves, in all their might, had failed to bind her. How could mortals succeed where Olympus had fallen short?
But of course, they weren’t searching for someone stronger than Pandora. Such a being did not exist among mortals. What Athena sought was different. Not superiority, but singularity. Someone unique among mortals, a soul sharp enough to cut the thread of fate itself. Strength mattered, yes, but strength alone was never enough.
That was why this round was so merciless. The giant humanoid spiders in the first test had already culled the weak. Now the wolves—fast, brutal, resilient—would thin the numbers further. Where over eighty had survived the first trial, Nathan estimated half already lay dead or dying here. The air was thick with their blood, their screams echoing against the stone.
It was ruthless. Efficient. Entirely in character for a tournament crafted by gods and tyrants.
A ragged cry cut through the din.
“Damn it! It’s never-ending or what?!”
Isak’s voice cracked as he swung his massive sword in wide, frantic arcs, more flailing than fighting. The summoned Hero’s blade cleaved into one wolf, but the strike was clumsy, his stance awkward. His movements betrayed a glaring truth: the boy had strength but no foundation. His arms trembled with each swing, his footwork stumbled, his balance constantly at risk.
Nathan watched him for a moment, silent, his lips curling in faint disdain. Two years summoned into this world, and still the Hero swung like a green recruit who had never seen true battle?
Beside him, Ethan chuckled. “He’s been spoiled as a Hero, unlike us.” His tone was light, mocking, but edged with truth.
Nathan said nothing, though inwardly he agreed.
A wolf lunged toward him, jaws gaping wide. Nathan bent his knees, leapt, and landed lightly atop the beast’s skull. His golden sword pierced downward in a clean, merciless thrust, the steel sliding through fur, bone, and brain with practiced ease. The wolf’s howl cracked into silence as its body collapsed beneath him.
He pulled the blade free in one swift motion, blood spraying across the stones as he landed gracefully beside Ethan.
“Strength can be given,” Nathan said at last, his voice low, steady, unyielding. “Blessings make it easy to wield power. But without training—without the forge of life-and-death battles—that strength is meaningless when faced with true opponents.”
Ethan smiled, amused, though Nathan’s eyes remained cold.
The truth burned in him because he had lived it. Power alone had never been enough. The first trigger for his awakening had come not through victory, but near death—his body broken and bloodied at the hands of Liphiel. That moment had carved something into him, something more enduring than any blessing.
And still, it hadn’t been enough.
Only the Trojan War had taught him what it truly meant to be a warrior. Month after month of ceaseless struggle, blood and fire, and loss. Only there had Nathan shed entirely his old self and taken the mantle of something greater.
Now, standing in the wolf’s den, he felt the echoes of that past stir within him. These trials, this tournament—they were brutal, yes. But they were nothing compared to the crucible he had already endured.
Nothing compared to the war that had shaped him.
Despite the wolves’ falling bodies, fatigue was finally beginning to press at Nathan. The beasts kept coming in an unbroken tide, a dark, teeth-bared wave that never seemed to finish. He sidestepped another lunge and let the charging predator slam into Ethan — who had been needling him all along — just to buy himself a breath.
Ahead, where the pack poured from the shadows, he saw the shape of a structure: a massive iron cage, its bars black with old rust and fresh blood. Wolves spilled through its open maw one after another, as if some invisible hand never ceased opening the gate. Yet, the gate needn’t be open forever — someone had to shut it. That, Nathan realized, was the trap’s true cruelty: grinding them down until someone — anyone — tried to close it and was picked off.
So fighting the entire swarm inside the den was suicide… unless someone closed the gate. That was their only chance. It was a bleak, brutal logic, but it made the purpose of the slaughterous design plain.
“This is endless,” a man nearby snarled between strikes.
“What kind of round is this?!” another cried, slashing wildly.
“Who knows! Just fight!” someone else barked.
A grudging complicity spread among the survivors — for once they fought as one against a common enemy rather than each other. Nathan took advantage of that shift. He lifted his voice and cut through the din so everyone could hear.
“We need to close the cage!” he shouted. The cry snapped every head toward him — even Benjamin’s. The gaunt man moved mechanically, more corpse than man, but his gaze flicked, briefly alive with attention. The gladiators clustered, breathing, bleeding, eyes shining in the torchlight. They wanted direction.
“There is a cage at the back,” Nathan said, steady and loud. “They’re pouring out from inside. We shut that, we stop the flood.”
“Close it?!” someone scoffed. “Are you kidding?”
“There are thirty wolves ahead!” another protested, voice trembling with panic.
“I’ll close it — you just draw their attention. Give me a path!” Nathan ordered.
A chorus of scoffs and curses rose instantly. “Why should we obey you?” “Yeah!” “Fuck off, Septimius!” They spat their jealousy openly: Septimius, the mercenary who’d risen fast in Rome, loved by women, trusted by Caesar — envied and hated in equal measure. To many of these men, Nathan was not a savior but a symbol of privilege they resented.
Nathan just sneered coldly. “Then you’ll die like dogs right here,” he said, venom clear in the words. The threat trembled through them like a cold wind. For a few seconds, the silence that followed was heavier than any roar.
Then someone stepped forward.
“I will hold them back — alone, if I must.”
A cheer rippled through the group. “Look! It’s Spartacus!” someone shouted. The mood shifted in an instant. Where Nathan’s presence had kindled suspicion, Spartacus carried reverence. He was the myth made flesh to these men: the rebel who had dared stand against Rome, the symbol of slaves and the dispossessed. Their hope found a face.
Spartacus’s eyes were hard as he looked at Nathan. “I will do it alone if needed,” he said. His voice was steady, not boastful — a vow. Then his gaze sharpened. “But are you capable of closing it, Septimius?”
Nathan gave a small, searching smile. “Do it, and I’ll close that damn cage.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a wolf leapt from the flank and bore down on Nathan from behind. In a blur, Spartacus vanished between shadow and steel. His fist connected with the animal’s muzzle in a thunderous impact — bone crushed, sinew snapped — and the wolf exploded backward, slamming into another with a dull, catastrophic boom.
The assembled gladiators gaped. For a heartbeat the tunnel held only the sound of ragged breathing and the distant clatter of the combat around them. Then Spartacus moved, not waiting for praise. He charged deeper into the den, a living wedge of iron and fury, drawing the nearest beasts like a magnet.
“Hurry up and get ready!” he yelled over his shoulder to Nathan.
The gladiators exchanged looks. Pride and fear fought in their eyes, but Spartacus’s courage was contagious. One by one they clenched hands, braced, then roared and surged forward after him, a ragged, determined host. Their footsteps struck like a drumbeat as they closed ranks, following the slave-turned-legend into the heart of the hunt.
The din of battle swelled into a thunderous roar. Wolves hurled themselves at the human wall, claws raking, teeth snapping, their snarls echoing like drums of war. Spartacus met the charge head-on, a mountain of muscle and fury. His fists struck like hammers, crushing bone, breaking muzzles, sending beasts tumbling back into their own ranks. He fought with the raw ferocity of a man who had never stopped rebelling, every strike a declaration that he would not kneel.
Behind him, the gladiators rallied. Their blades gleamed in arcs of desperate steel. Men roared, clashed, and fell, but they held, if only by inches. The wolves were relentless, but Spartacus’s courage bound them together. For the first time in this cursed tournament, they fought not as enemies but as comrades.
Nathan did not waste the moment. His crimson eyes fixed on the cage ahead — the heart of the endless tide. He could feel the pull of it, a malignant heartbeat spewing death into the chamber. Every second the door gaped open, more beasts spilled forth.
He sprinted forward, weaving through the chaos. A wolf leapt to bar his path. His golden sword flashed, severing its jaw clean in two. Another lunged from the side — Nathan ducked low, his blade tracing a gleaming line across its belly, spilling its insides onto the stone. He moved like water, flowing, unstoppable.
But the wolves were not fools. They smelled his intent. They sensed the threat. One after another, they converged, a wall of black fur and snapping jaws closing on him before he could reach the cage.
“Damn it!” a gladiator shouted, cutting down a beast but seeing Nathan hemmed in.
“Protect him! He’s going for the cage!” another cried.
For a heartbeat, the tide shifted. Men who moments ago cursed Nathan’s name now threw themselves into the fray, hacking and shouting, drawing wolves back with suicidal bravery. Their faces were grim, their bodies battered, but they knew the truth — if the cage wasn’t closed, they were all already dead.
Nathan seized the gap, surging forward. His boots pounded against the blood-slick stone as he neared the cage. Up close, it was even larger, a monstrous construct of iron bars thicker than a man’s arm. Inside, wolves writhed and snarled, a storm of hunger pressing against the barrier. Their claws screeched against the iron, sparks flying as they fought to escape.
The gate itself was ajar, forced open by some unseen design. A chain hung slack, broken deliberately to make closing it near impossible. Nathan’s eyes narrowed. Of course. This was the real test — not strength, not endurance, but will. Who among them would step into the maw of death, alone, and shut the world’s throat?
A wolf burst free, lunging straight at him. Nathan pivoted, drove his blade upward, and impaled it through the chest. With a kick he tore the weapon free and shoved the twitching body aside. Another followed, its teeth snapping for his neck. He twisted, felt hot breath graze his skin, then rammed his hilt into its skull, cracking bone before plunging his blade into its throat.
He reached the gate. The roar of the wolves inside was deafening now, a chorus of rage. Dozens pressed against the bars, their yellow eyes blazing with madness. Nathan set his jaw and grasped the heavy door.
He immediately felt that it wasn’t an ordinary door.
The iron groaned, unmoving as Nathan thought of just in case to not over do it just this time. Wolves clawed at the opening, their jaws snapping inches from his face. One beast’s paw slashed at him, its claws raking across his arm but he barely reacted.
Behind him, Spartacus bellowed, his fists drenched in blood as he hurled a wolf aside. The gladiators screamed and fought, blades flashing, bodies breaking. The chamber was chaos — but still they held. Still they bought Nathan seconds.
“Close it!” Spartacus roared, voice thunder over the din. “Now, Septimius!”
Nathan smirked and let out a gladiator-like roar something the public would love it and lifted it and started closing it.
The gate screeched. Iron ground against stone. The opening narrowed. Wolves shrieked as their bodies were crushed between the bars, blood spraying as they were split. The door clanged shut, the final slam echoing like the toll of a bell.
For a breathless instant, silence fell. The wolves outside froze, confused, their tide broken. Inside the cage, dozens of beasts writhed and snarled, their fury redoubled but their prison sealed.
Nathan jumped atop the cage.
Slowly, he raised his golden sword and stabbed down inside the cage. The blade glowed faintly in the dim light, its edge gleaming with otherworldly promise. His lips parted, breath steadying. The word was a whisper, soft yet heavy, laden with a power far greater than mortal tongues could bear.
“Amaterasu.”